New BNT exec favors private, nonprofit, government teamwork

Noah Gotbaum has been appointed as the new CEO of Bridgeport Neighborhood Trust.

Photo: Contributed Photo / Contributed Photo

A proposed statewide debt diet may create problems for housing development, but Bridgeport Neighborhood Trust’s new chief executive sees it as opportunity.

“We’ve got to get creative, and we really have to work closely with the private sector — not just with the government — to build affordable,” said Noah Gotbaum, who is now leading the community development nonprofit in the Park City. He was named after a regional search that included more than 100 candidates to replace longtime CEO Elizabeth Torres, who departed in the fall.

Gotbaum brings a mix of experience from the private, public and nonprofit sectors to the new position, which BNT officials said set him apart from the rest.

“He had such a strong background as it related to economic and community development,” said Kim Bianca Williams, BNT Board President. “We were not just looking for someone who had (economic) development, but also experience in the nonprofit arena.”

The New York resident co-founded New York Cares, a volunteer management nonprofit that served more than 400,000 New Yorkers in need last year. Gotbaum also became the organization’s first Board Chairman and, later, a longtime Board member.

In the private sector, he brings roughly three decades of experience in real estate finance, development, and economic and community development, including work on the redevelopment of downtown Brooklyn with the Forest City Ratner Companies. He also helped rebuild major Eastern European urban centers as the President and Chief Investment Officer of the $240 million U.S. government-backed OPIC Pioneer/Banc-One New Europe Property Fund.

Gotbaum said he is looking to leverage that experience to move BNT’s development efforts forward, especially amid Gov. Ned Lamont’s cutbacks of state borrowing — which leaves nonprofits and affordable housing developers with less funding.

Last year, there were 140,531 Connecticut households deemed “extremely low income” but only 51,050 affordable rental units available in the state.

Gotbaum sees an opportunity to partner with private investors looking to lay down roots in Bridgeport, he said.

“I’ve been working in the nexus of the public, private and nonprofit sectors,” he said. “I have always believed very firmly in cooperation between the public, private and the nonprofit world and that’s been reflected in my career.”

With a long-standing history of revitalizing neglected neighborhoods in the Park City — many in federal opportunity zones — BNT will look to attract private investors to facilitate new projects, Gotbaum said.

“(Private developers) also need to work closely with the nonprofit world because a lot of the projects that they are going to do are going to be mixed-income projects by necessity, where a portion of what they are building has to have affordability and meet affordability guidelines. And we can help with that,” he added.

Along with development, Gotbaum said improving financial literacy among residents will also remain a top priority for BNT moving forward.